Blog Post

Where next for Steven Sinofsky?

Steven Sinofsky, the former president of Microsoft’s Windows group (s msft) probably never needs to work again — he’s a 20-year-plus veteran of the company who is vested many times over. But no one really thinks he’s retiring.

So … where will SteveSi land next? Interesting question. He’s not talking (much), so let’s speculate.

Someone with Sinofsky’s talents for managing huge software development projects probably means he can write his own ticket. Those skills could come in handy with many companies including Microsoft rivals Google (s goog) and Apple(s aapl). Neither is a Windows player at all but both would probably both love to pick his brain. Imagine the headlines either of those appointments would make. Facebook(s fb) is another option, according to an informal poll of sources including Microsoft insiders.

Amazon(s amzn) would be an interesting choice. He wouldn’t have to relocate and Amazon seeks more enterprise expertise for its cloud services push. One Twitter correspondent thinks Seattle-based Tableau, the hot-shot business intelligence startup, would be an interesting choice.

I would say either a Chinese or Korean company. Samsung? They (the Asians) have always had problems writing software. This is what killed Sony.

Samsung is within range of hurting Apple, overcoming Microsoft and complementing Google.

Yes – I’d say Samsung would be perfect. He should go on a buying spree – spend about $1B in acquiring software entities around the world, set up research and dev labs all over the place – and ship some code – American style!